Witch Infernalist feedback from mid-level player.

Hello, a person who played POE1 for half a decade or so, decided to check out(and give some money to GGG, you deserve it all) for playing POE2 EA.

While EA makes me pretty much certain that this is all a fluid adaptive development of the game, so there's a few things that are borked and/or non-functional.

As I played out quite a bit as pure fire spell build.

Here's a feedback/discussion focused thread from a person who played the first 60~ levels as Fire mage and what/how it has been.

First skills as Fire.

Flame wall:
As the first fire spell you get, it does decent damage and scales nicely for the first few mobs. but over time it becomes very subpar in damage, even with a fully 4 slot (5 slot I never found so, that's on me) all out on damage.
Support gems feedback for Firewall.
Fortress: It's a good tool for using AOE and Projectile buff up for other spells but the heavy nerf to the damage is extreme. If anything this is ignoring the point of the firewall being there at all for its ignite function(Which there's no good way make use of currently outside of spells such as Elemental Discharge on other spells, compared to its Ice counterpart that defensive wall and larger explosion radius) and projectile buff(Usually better for Ice/Lightning than Fire)
AoE Increase: While a longer wall is nicer, I would love to see it do more in the thickness as well (The faster mobs can actually almost go through the wall without getting ignited at the faster monsters)
Spell Cascade: Was attempting to make use of this which is nice, but the random axis makes or breaks ideas/setups/functions you wish to use without sacrificing the damage compared to fortress.

Suggestions for Flame Wall
1: Damage up, a lot on all boards. Damage per second and ignite.
2: Make the ignite from firewall have a slow magnitude to get something out of the fortress or cascade function as defensive use. Even better if you can put wildfire on it if it was possible to make it become a support tool rather than damage tool.

Ember Fusillade:
The 2nd tier fire spell I tried out. It was awkward to use well since its targetting is wonky but the damage of it is pretty high compared to the other spells we can use. In general I think it's useable but there's a few things that really made me skip the spell after level 30.
1: Make it dynamically skilled. Example would be to make the "cast time" change over time. Could be as simple as the first 1-2-3 would be fast cast time (Within 1-2 seconds) and then become slower for each cast after that. This is DPS while being safety example, the other would be to nuke it. Making the first casts be very slow and then scale up faster and faster till the max value. And it becomes a nuke hit for insane damage for the long build up (5-7 seconds or so?). An idea is to play around with the More Ember the better the damage should be in the focus of any of the suggested examples.
2: Make the dodge roll NOT break the spell and forces it to shoot the path of rolling. Make it "pause" in mid roll is a simple fix here. This is the core reason I removed it since it becomes mandatory to roll often against any bosses or fast rares.
Support wise it's quite varied and has tons of options available, so no bad synergy here to point out.

Incinerate
The main skill I used since every other spell pretty much makes you dead compared to the output available.
Insane damage on Max stack + Exposure, if you ignore the lackluster ignite mechanic which is just added additionally to the main damage. With Mobility Support this becomes the strongest safest spell you can use.
No problem with the damage output at all nor its main damage numbers, however, the burning ground is horrible in larger fighters and only works well against straight corridor fights. To make this become a bit more helpful the burning ground should be spread not from the tip but from the start to the tip. This will help synergize both offensive and defensive situations and help with spreading out a decent ignite.
I kind of miss the POE1 function of the cone size of Incinerate. I kind of miss how it is larger at first and then becomes smaller and smaller the longer its focused. Also, an idea is to make it become more "blue" the longer you focus, as tons of fire on a screen in a fire area is horrible visually and makes you miss important visuals mechanically.
Support Synergies
AoE: I tried out Magnify and maxed out Area of effects to see how it works and its....not that great feeling considering the burning ground area. Its kind of counter play since you cannot use it defensively if you got too much Area of effect increases.
Suggestion: Burning ground from start to tip, keep the rest at it is. Maybe also make the fire exposure effect function as it should, cause for some odd reason, it says "Max 50" Fire exposure but I was able to make it becomd 63% for some reason without it saying why. Another thing is also to make the Fire Exposure effect linger a bit longer so you can keep it up with only 1 roll.

Solar Orb:
Poor poor Solar Orb, it has so many issues of how to use fun as well functional. This was the core skill I build my Fire With around to make it as powerful as possible. I had over 200%+ AoE increase (For the ignite and damage area) and it's still underwhelmingly weak.
The interesting part that I wanted to see become really strong was the "Ignite zone" since it looked like it had the highest Ignite base damage out of all fire spells in the game (Since Firestorm is brokenly bad atm). However even with the maximum amount of damage + AoE, it BARELY reaches 2 metres from 1 metres. This is with every possible northern AoE increase in the game. I really wish to use this as a "Ignite kill zone" but the base area is horrendous for how little the ignite area is. The pulse is nice and all but it's the ignite zone that needs another look at. Perhaps make it scale more with Area or anything. And please make the damage of Solar Orb up up up up a lot.
Support
Searing Flame: I did some quick testing and for some reason, this is basically a 30-35%~ damage increase on the ignite, but that's only on the ignite, while removing the pulse damage by so much it's basically an almost 0 increase. Which is odd for a support gem. Don't know how to give this a better trade off as use. But it should be looked at.
Personal suggestion: Make it not pulse, but become a full zone of ignite area (Perhaps by 3 degrees, 40% at the edge, 70% at the middle ring, 100% at the center area.). The Temple of Kopec sun is the one I think it should be as a design idea. This makes it both a tool for ignite damage (If ignite damage actually would scale which it does not currently with how its implemented) and for setup (Ignite consumption combo).

Fire Ball:
I don't get it, I tried out maxing its damage in both single and group damage, and it's awkward to use well. It's great as a "Terrain" cleanser but I don't know how to make this change or become better or worse.

Firestorm
It cannot hit, as a spell that cannot hit (Outside of the first ball coming in on the hit). This makes the spell not much fun to use. Nor was it fun to use at Max AoE (It can hit 2 screens away, pulling so many many mobs I never used it again with the Solar Orb Focus build). It's damage is horrible outside of the Improved Bolt which you cannot control nor tell where to land, it can land and do 0 damage even in a pack of enemies. And sadly, the improved bolt has the highest base damage you can get from a single hit in the game for Fire skill, but cannot ignite which is based on the highest damage to make better magnitudes for ignite.....why????
Suggestion:
Make the first bolt always be a Improved Bolt consumed, atleast that way the cost of time/cast/pay off actually worthwhile for a throw. Let's begin there and see if it helps it out.
Also, odd thing here is that I wish to point out is that it would be a nice tool to use for elemental discharge if it worked with it, even if its projectile less (While being impact based)

Flameblast
Didn't use at all. My mistake on that cause at this point I just gave up on Ignite/Fire damage.

I'll stay around and play around a bit more, but until Fire spells gets a bit more love (And fix ignite scaling cause it's horrible and there's no good skill in Fire Spells for making a single hard hitting damage that can scale with ignite except probably flame blast?)

Love the game though!

Let's hope for a successful EA!

MVH
Old POE1 Fan.